In This Respect The Ancient And Far-Famed Mekka Is Surpassed
By The Smallest Provincial Towns Of Syria Or Egypt.
The same may be said
with respect to Medina, and I suspect that the towns of Yemen are
generally poor in architectural remains.
Mekka is deficient in those regulations of police which are customary in
Eastern cities. The streets are totally dark at night, no lamps of any
kind being lighted; its different quarters are without gates, differing
in this respect also from most Eastern towns, where each quarter is
regularly shut up after the last evening prayers. The town may therefore
be crossed at any time of the night, and the same attention is not paid
here to the security of merchants, as well as of husbands, (on whose
account principally, the quarters are closed,) as in Syrian or Egyptian
towns of equal magnitude. The dirt and sweepings of the houses are cast
into the streets, where they soon become dust or mud according to the
season. The same custom seems to have prevailed equally in ancient
times; for I did not perceive in the skirts of the town any of those
heaps of rubbish which are usually found near the large towns of Turkey.
With respect to water, the most important of all supplies, and that
which always forms the first object of inquiry among Asiatics, Mekka is
not much better provided than Djidda; there are but few cisterns for
collecting rain, and the well-water is so brackish that it is used only
for culinary purposes, except during the time of the pilgrimage, when
the lowest class of hadjys drink it. The famous well of Zemzem, in the
great mosque, is indeed sufficiently copious to supply the whole town;
but, however holy, its water is heavy to
[p.107] the taste and impedes digestion; the poorer classes besides have
not permission to fill their water-skins with it at pleasure. The best
water in Mekka is brought by a conduit from the vicinity of Arafat, six
or seven hours distant. The present government, instead of constructing
similar works, neglects even the repairs and requisite cleansing of this
aqueduct. It is wholly built of stone; and all those parts of it which
appear above ground, are covered with a thick layer of stone and cement.
I heard that it had not been cleaned during the last fifty years; the
consequence of this negligence is, that the most of the water is lost in
its passage to the city through apertures, or slowly forces its way
through the obstructing sediment, though it flows in a full stream into
the head of the aqueduct at Arafat. The supply which it affords in
ordinary times is barely sufficient for the use of the inhabitants, and
during the pilgrimage sweet water becomes an absolute scarcity; a small
skin of water (two of which skins a person may carry) being then often
sold for one shilling - a very high price among Arabs.
There are two places in the interior of Mekka where the aqueduct runs
above ground; there the water is let off into small channels or
fountains, at which some slaves of the Sherif are stationed, to exact a
toll from persons filling their water-skins.
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